Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #482: Ann Coulter, Michael McFaul

Episode Date: January 26, 2019

Bill’s guests are Ann Coulter, Michael McFaul, Joshua Green, Dan Savage, Heather McGhee. (Originally aired 1/25/19) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. I appreciate that. Glad you got that out of your system. I know why you're happy today, everybody, because Trump today announced a deal to temporarily reopen the federal government. It'll be open for three weeks, like his casinos. And, of course, no funding for the wall. So the thing he said he would never do, he just did.

Right? For 35 days, he were like, there will never be a deal without wall fending, wall funding. And Nancy Pelosi said, oh, yeah, hold my beer. Of course, Trump always has to frame everything as a win for him. Three weeks to give the wall, maybe I'll declare, he said, an emergency. That's his new strategy. I'll give you three weeks to declare an emergency. He's like the bad guy at the end of every movie,

falling off a skyscraper, still yelling shit on his way down. You may have won this round, striker, but I'm... And Pelosi's there like, yippy-ie, hey, pussy grabber. Listen to this. A couple days ago, Trump was talking about this, and he said, I'm quoting word for it, he said, Nancy Pelosi, or as I call her, Nancy...

That's how bad she is kicking this man's ass. His cutting nickname for her is her name. But he hasn't been idle. Trump, he came up with the slogan. Did you hear that this week? He said, build a wall, crime will fall. It's stupid. It's factually inaccurate.

So I came up with one. That's so dumb, your base will come. And Pelosi said, you won't get your wall. I've got bigger ball. It's not that hard to run. Oh, speaking of balls. Trump's ban. on transgender people serving in the military.

They say that can be enforced. That's what you get when you put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. So that can be enforced. And Trump's, you know, Trump has always had it out, right, for the transgender. People don't know why. He told us today, he said, no one wants to grab a pussy and get a surprise. But let's not bury what's most important in America. Everyone is talking about the smirk heard round the world.

You saw this kid this week. Remember this kid? Yeah. If you don't know what this is, if you're living under Iraq, okay, here's what happened. This was at the Lincoln Memorial. This is on the mall.

But, of course, at the mall in Washington, there's all kinds of people protesting. And there were three groups there that day that got into it. There was the black Hebrew Israelites. There's not many of them. There aren't. They've been in New York.

I remember, they stand on the corner calling white people crackers. And they finally got some attention. They believe African Americans are the literal descendants of the Israelites in the Bible, except we have DNA and they're not. They did 23 and me, and it came back, you're kidding, right?

But the black Hebrew started to mix it up with these Catholic high school kids who were there from Kentucky, right. Okay, and they were there with a big pro-life march. and then a Native American elder playing a drum got in the middle to mediate. And now it's a big thing, and, you know, people saying the kid,

I don't blame the kid, the smirking kid. I blame lead poisoning. And bad parenting. And, oh, yeah, I blame that fucking kid. What a little brick. Smirk face. Smirk face says, please. Like, that's not a dick move at any aid

to stick your face in this elderly. men and this smirking kid says he was just trying to diffuse the situation by really you know what next time you get into a fight with your wife or your husband or your boyfriend or your girlfriend uh try that try see how getting two inches from their face with a shit eating grin and see if it diffuses the situation yes if you asked me this kid should have done what everyone does during a drum solo leave but really i mean i don't spend a lot lot of time, I must tell you, around Catholic schoolchildren. But I do not get what Catholic priests see in these kids.

But big news, Roger Stone today was arrested. Former guest Trump's first and greatest political booster. He's been trying to make Donald Trump president since 1988. He should go to jail just for that. But, I mean, he is a true believer. You know this, I bet you this political savvy crowd knows it. He has a giant tattoo of Richard Nixon. and covering his entire back.

That's true. I feel sorry for his cellmate. Try to keep an erection looking at that. All right. Listen, before we bring out Ann, I want to introduce someone in our audience. You know, I've been saying for the longest time one reason this country is in such a mess

is because we are politically illiterate. And one reason for that is we don't teach civics anymore in school. Civics. Okay. So 14 kids. in Providence, Rhode Island, sued the school for not teaching the civics. They said, you are not preparing us to live in a democracy. And one of them is here, please give a big hand to Akman's essay.

Ladies and gentlemen, stand up. The great show, Dan Savage, Heather McGee, and Joshua Green are here in a little letter. We're speaking with former ambassador on Michael McFaul, but first up, she's a political commentator and author of Resistance is futile. How the Trump aiding Left Lost Its Collective Mind? My good friend of me, Ann Coulter is here. You are more powerful. You're like Wonder Woman if Wonder Woman was the villain.

But really, all over the news, I hear them talking about the cult or veto. Whatever Donald Trump does, if you don't say it's okay, no good. I promise you, the country would be run much better if I had a veto over what Donald Trump. Well, you kind of do. I mean, he was ready to go along with what they passed on the homeland. No, but this is... Look. crazy that I expect

a president to keep the promise he made every day for 18 months. No, it's not just, it's the base. That's what happened. You had him making this, what are you looking at? I'm looking at this guy, he's holding the card behind the camera, which is an interesting place to put it if I was Superman and could see through it.

You don't have to look at that. I'll do all the talking. No, it's crazy. The base is what has rebelled here, and they can take me as a stand-in the base, but that's all I am, a member of the base. Well, that's very modest. I mean, you said today, this is her tweet when Trump capitulated on the wall. He said, good news

for Herbert Walker Bush. As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as president. So, let me get this straight. You were convinced that Donald Trump was the guy. You voted for him, Donald Trump. Correct. And now you're finding out he's a lying

conman. What was your first clue? I mean... Okay, this is the thing. Not only, and you haven't even... Okay, I'm a very stupid girl, fine. But that was actually a selling point with Trump. I mean, you can make fun of me for also writing and Trump We Trust, E. Pluribus Awesome.

Look, we've been lied to over and over and over again by politicians, by respectable people, by people like Mitt Romney and George Bush, Obama and Clinton, we're going to protect your jobs. Not to the same degree. And if I could just say for a second to an audience that is not wild about me, I think this build-the-wall line has become,

and it sounds like crooked Hillary or lock her up. It isn't that. You're being played. This is, as Bernie Sanders said, a Koch brothers idea. This is lots of cheap labor pouring into this country is good for employers. It's not good for employees. You know who wants it? The Koch brothers.

They want it. Rupert Murdoch wants it. My party wants it. Why hasn't Trump been able to get it through the first two years? The point is that the wall won't stop that. don't want it. It's all of mass immigration. It's our legal immigration. It's no evarified. The wall is a big part of that. But the reason... And you're being played to have everybody keep acting like this is some sort of racist thing. You're... Well... Working-class wages have gone down.

Okay. Middle-class wages have been stagnant. It's great for the rich. It's good for you. Okay, but the... Bad for people who work. Okay, but the point was the wall won't stop that. Of course it would. Of course it won't. Most people who come here from Mexico. don't come... For jobs? They come for jobs. They come on a plane

and then just stay. That's absolutely not true. And if you say walls don't work, tell it to Netanyahu. They built a wall... It's not a different thing at all. They built a wall with illegal immigration rate of zero. They built a wall to stop suicide bombers.

I've never... My gardener has once tried to blow me up. That was only on the... That's not true. No, that's not true. That's absolutely... They built two walls. Northern side, Gaza side...

I agree. Walls works. Southern side was to stop African illegal immigrants coming in and taking jobs, went from a huge problem to zero illegal immigrants. All right. And Mexico will pay for it? What happened to that promise? I wonder myself what happened, but I will say

in his defense, look, in Trump's defense he never said they would prepay for it. He explained very clearly how it would be done. He said it would be done. Well, he didn't. No, he laid this out very clearly. He said we would tax remittances. Mexicans in this country both legal and illegal, send back $25 billion every year.

Every year, that's enough for the full wall. You put a 10% tax on that, as he recommended, and he put it in his immigration policy paper. In 10 years, you've paid for a $25 billion wall. Okay, but today he was talking about how we never said it was a wall from coast to coast. That's exactly what he said. You know, first it was a wall, then it was a fence,

then it was just, I guess, cones, you know? No. By now it's a gentle little garden trellis. I think maybe thoughts and prayers. what we're up to. Just see if we can get thoughts and prayers to work for that. But let me just ask about his state of mind. He said the other day, he said, I see a lot of the

Democrats, almost all of them. This just speaks to his mind, and this is what I want to ask you why you like this guy. Like, he's starting with a giant lie that the Democrats, the end of the quote is, are breaking. I see a lot of the Democrats, almost all of them are breaking, saying, look,

walls are good, walls are good. No Democrats are saying that. That's exactly the opposite of their position. and their leader said it's an immorality. So he starts with a lie. I see a lot of the Dems. He's in the middle of his own sentence when he then goes,

almost all of them. You see? He builds on his own lie from two seconds before. He is not fucking sane. You know... He is not a sane person. Really?

He convinces himself of his own reality. That is so dangerous. His own... Tell me that, oh, he's so coarse. He's so vulgar. He makes that... I went into this fully clear ride.

Again, we liked that about him because respectable people who listen to NPR. You like someone who doesn't live in reality? Because I thought, not I, we thought that he wouldn't care what the elites thought, and he'd actually keep his promises on this. And by the way, in fact, Nancy Pelosi didn't say we need a barrier at the border. Chuck Schumer did. Obama said it over and over again. They all did.

They all did. But they decided, no, let's suck up to Wall Street, and they want cheap nannies. And the Republican said, let's suck up to Chamber of Commerce. We want cheap nannies. All of you are being screwed. By the way, cheap labor isn't so bad for me. I'm not as rich as he is, but I'm not doing badly. My landscaping is beautiful.

There is not a bit of slime on my pool. It's good for me, but I care about my fellow Americans and the working class. He doesn't come to my pool. I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you in bed tonight. Tonight, I'll be Kelly Ann and you be George Conway. We'll switch it up. Okay.

So he also said this week, I know more about technology than anybody. Now, this is an insane person. No. I mean, how can we move forward with an insane person? No, I find that. I find his puffering really charming. I mean, that's hardly the stupidest thing. So, and if Obama did that, it would be.

He said he had the best words. He said he's the most Christian person that he can be more presidential than Lincoln. I could go on and on and on. It makes me laugh. That's fine. I like that about him. Just keep your promise, and I'm right back in his camp. Okay. So let me ask you about the other big story today. Roger Stone was arrested.

I would agree with you. It was an over-the-top arrest. But, you know, what about the lie? You say you're okay with these fun lies. That's not a lie. It's puffery. exaggeration. No one... He says, I have the best words. No one thinks, oh, yeah, this guy must have the best words. It's an insane clinical narcissist, but okay, that shouldn't be present. But, okay, give you that one. What about lies that really matter? Like, we found out that every time he said, and we've all seen the clips on the news where he said, I had

no context with Russia. Nothing. We stayed away. We didn't... We know that that's a plain lie. That's a kind of a consequential lie, isn't it? Now that we know he was... He was trying to build a tower in Moscow up until the election. I don't think we know any of this. And I don't think it matters. That's a fact. Hillary Clinton paid through her campaign $30 million to Russian officials to get dirt on Trump. She did?

Well, I missed that story. No, you didn't. It's the whole fusion GPS story. She paid that to get Russian dirt on Trump. If she's going to be walking around having maltz, then I really don't want to hear about Trump having a deal. She didn't pay Russia. She wasn't working with Russia.

He is working with a foreign adversary. There is no evidence. This is so insane. Of course there's evidence. Mueller has 37... I'm telling you how to get Trump. He promised something for 18 months, and he lied about it. That's how you get Trump.

It's not this Russia nonsense. You are so wasting time. Well, we're... You know, I remember your boyfriend, Ronald Reagan, saying... Russia was an evil empire, Mr. Gorbachev tear down the wall. What do you think Ronald Reagan would think right now? I think he would think... About us being so cozy...

I won the Cold War. What is with these lunatics? It's not the Soviet Union anymore. But we didn't win it. We did win it. But it's still Russia. So what? It's not the Soviet Union. We are not living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.

It's over. Now Russia is a normally corrupt country. The president is a traitor who is in their camp. Okay. Today, Venezuela, this is the front page of the New York Times Times paper. Venezuela, okay? Mm-hmm. They have a guy, an opposition leader who finally stood up, and we are backing him. And Russia warned us to back off because they're backing the dictator.

This was the Monroe Doctrine. This is our backyard. And Russia is now telling us to back off of what goes on in Venezuela, because they know they can, because they're so emboldened. That doesn't bother you. You're the patriot. Well, I'm not just the Patriot, as you said. I'm also the Donald Trump advisor,

and I'm also telling him to back off because you know what is more in our backyard than even Venezuela, Texas, Arizona, California. Can we care about those states and what's being done to them? It always gets back to hating Mexicans, isn't it? No, it doesn't. It gets back

to loving Americans. All right. It gets back to... Look, I'm not a union, you know, bookkeeper. I don't work at Wendy's. I'm not a roofer or a greenwaller. Is Trump going to declare... They're the ones who are being screwed over. Is Trump going to declare a national emergency? He doesn't need to. He's the president.

No, but he said in three weeks, what's he going to do? Someone has got to read a constitution to him. He's the commander-in-chief. His job is to defend the border. Last question. A lot of people are saying you should be the one to run for president. Would you do that? I'm against women working, so I can't.

Ed Coulter, everybody. Anne Coulter, let the jousting begin. Thank you. All right. I'm sure I won't see you. Yes. Home me. Okay.

All right. Let's meet our fellow. Okay. He's hard to get down. All right. He is the columnist of Savage Lovecast and host of the Savage Lovecast podcast. Our friend Dan Savage is back here.

She is a distinguished senior fellow Ademos Action and NBC News Policy Analyst. Heather McGee. Hey, Heather. Good to see you. And he's a Bloomberg Businessweek national correspondent whose book Devil's Bargain is now in paperback. Joshua Green.

Welcome back to us. Okay. So, I'm so glad that part is... Welcome back. Thank you. So Donald Trump, by all accounts, had a pretty bad day today. I mean, the FBI is rolling up his gang. He got his nuts squashed by a woman.

He's not getting his wall, and his poll numbers are in the toilet. That's got to hurt the most. terrible ratings. He's got terrible, terrible, terrible ratings. My question, what country are we going to go to war to to get our mind off of this? Because I feel like that's what he's plotting. That's the only card he has left is to distract us with Wag the Dog. Venezuela.

Venezuela. That was going to be my... And what happens in three weeks when this... Nancy Pelosi hands him his ass a second time. But meaning... No, I mean, this is an unpopular president. It's an unpopular wall. It's an unpopular idea shutting down the government. You had Republicans saying, we don't want to do that again.

He has completely lost his leverage. And the larger point here is that this wall is a monument to a moment in time of American racism and xenophobia and anxiety that's being ginned up by the paid bullies in the corporate media. I'm not going to name any names of any of your other guests that have been here tonight. who are doing this so that white Americans are pointing fingers at working class people of different races instead of the plutocrats where they belong.

Yeah, I never... Well, she's kind of making that same point. She's blaming the people who hire the illegals. And by the way, Ann Coulter is for AOC's 70% tax on the rich. I was kind of surprised about that. I'm very surprised by that. Yeah.

But I think the question of what Trump does now, the thing that worries people in the White House, I spent all day calling White House advisors and people about Trump. The thing that they all say to a man, and they were all men, custody of Trump's manhood effectively passed from Ann Coulter to Nancy Pelosi today.

And we have three weeks of Trump having to watch that on television on Fox News. And so what he does is going to depend on how they react. No, I remember he said about Al Franken, he said he folded like a wet rag, a phrase I had never heard before. But he folded like a wet rag. He hasn't lost that badly since the last time he was in front of a bankruptcy judge.

I mean, he got nothing. And he was telling people as recently as last night, spoke to Trump, and he said, I am not going to sign a continuing resolution to open the government unless I get some wall money, and he'd turn around and caved. And today they closed, or were shutting down LaGuardia Airport, a Newark airport. That's the pressure point that Trump caved under

was hearing from his friends who couldn't get from D.C. New York and back. But, you know, I often ask... I often I asked somebody this last week like, why do the Republicans get half the vote? What are they good at? They're

not good at national defense. That was their big thing. They're traitors with Russia. They're enablers of a traitor president. That's, you know, I just said the thing about Venezuela. We can't even keep the fucking Russians out of our backyard. They're good at demagoguery. They're good at racism. They're good at stoking fear. All the stuff...

Everybody's like, oh, it's economic anxiety. Oh, it's the working class. All those first reaction to Trump's winds, all the research, all the social science research and data sense have proven that it's racist, white, dumbfox. That is an amazing. In our anti-democratic system, we have a federal government that is weighted

toward acreage and not human beings. So we have Republican states with two senators that have 11 people living in them and two senators for California. That is a flaw in our... They also live in a different world. I mean, Trump's popular... Republicans, Trump's popularity among Republicans

increased during the shutdown. Support for the wall among Republicans increased during the shutdown. They don't think that they're losing. So part of the problem for Trump is now that he's folded... Do they hear... When he says something like he said yesterday he was talking when we still had the shutdown and he said, well people can

go to the grocery store where you have to show ID to buy food and he said, you know, your grocer will help you out. Like what fucking Green Acres Sam Drucker world are we living in, where you can go to your grocer and say, you know, I'm going to, can you, oh, sure.

You'll get me at planting season, Clem. Really? Because I would not try that at Air One, because they will not slide at all. But his inner circle are all billionaires. I mean, Jared Kushner and Wilbur Raw. I mean, literally millionaires. But don't there people notice that? Don't his fans notice that?

No, they are noticing. To Josh's point, a second ago, that there are. You know, he's more and more popular with Republicans, but there are fewer and fewer Republicans now than there were two years ago. And the media treats them like they're half of the country, and they're just not. And they're a dying breed in terms of millennials. It's not just that they're dying off. They didn't win the election and controlled almost all of government up until...

They did, but I have two words for you, voter suppression and jail. Yeah, no, they cheat. That's true. And the electoral college. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. We should say that every morning when we're brushing our team. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. And if we didn't have this anti-democratic electoral college

that was designed by racist to protect slave states, we wouldn't have Donald Trump in the White House. So there is someone draining the swamp, and it looks like it's Robert Buller, because he keeps... I think he's got, how many people, 37 now? A hundred counts. And 100 meetings there was between Trump and people,

Trump people and Russians. And Roger Stone, who, I love this, I guess this is in the indictment. I don't know how they get these things. An email that he sent to a witness. Do you know who that witness was? Who wasn't testifying the way Roger Stone wanted him to? And he emailed him,

You're a rat, a stoolie. Prepare to die cock sucker. That's called Witness Tampa. Love to the family, Roger Stone. Only the best people. Now, for those of us who have not been tuning in every week on the Russia thing, let's try to kitchen table a little.

But Roger Stone is sort of the conduit. between WikiLeaks who got a hold of Hillary's emails, right, gave them to the Russians, and the indictment is really about Roger Stone being in the middle of that and probably getting the order to do that from Steve Bannon. Roger Stone, first of all right under Trump. Is Trump's oldest and most trusted political advisor.

Even after he got fired, still talk to Trump all the time. With the indictment today shows, proves, is a chain of collusion from Russia to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange to Roger Stone, to Steve Bannon, we know, but also to other high-ranking Trump officials. It proves that. It claims you. This is why Trump was arrested.

The evidence is laid out. He wouldn't do the indictment. Based on, yeah, and this isn't hearsay. This is based on text messages and email. I mean, it is all right there. Why do these people email things like, prepare to die cock? And they say cock sucker, like, it's an insult.

And I take that person. That is a skill set. Because much like Trump, a lot of these guys live in a fantasy world where, you know, look, he made it to the White House acting like a pretend tough guy. I mean, who's to stop him in mid-act? He made it to the White House acting like a businessman when all he does is cheat people, defraud people, and lose money. I mean, this is what he does. He didn't pay his contractors. And at the first opportunity, when he's the head of the federal government, he stopped paying federal employees and federal contractors.

It's his M.O. I feel like with Roger Stone, like in every kick-ass action movie, there's always like the big bad guy who's the last one that you have to kill, of course. But then you've got to like kill the henchman, you know, going up. You kill the main henchman.

Then you kill Gary Busey. And then you kill the... Okay, I feel like Roger Stone is Gary Busey or close. I mean, I don't know what gets higher than Roger Stone except, like, I think Don Jr. and I'm waiting for Trump to be like, Don Jr. My son, I met him briefly. We were...

We're doing to be a very short time that I knew Don Jr. The big mystery in Mueller's indictment today, there were at least two high-level officials who talked to WikiLeaks. One we know was Steve Bannon, but the other we know was not Steve Bannon, because Bannon wasn't on the campaign yet. This happened in July.

It could be Don Jr. It could be Paul Manafort. It could be Rick Gates, and the language in that indictment said was instructed to go to WikiLeaks by whom. It could be Donald Trump. That's the mystery that everybody is waiting to see. That's the writing on the wall. Okay.

Well, you know, one of the great things we're going to be able to look back on the Trump era and be proud of is that it taught us so much about crime. And things I did not know. I read this in the New York Times this week. There is a Jewish prison. I never knew this. Did you see this? Cohen's, this is Michael Cohen, is going to prison.

and you get to request your prison. I didn't know that either. Cohen's prison request. Otisville, the Nirvana for Jewish offenders. I couldn't make this. It's in the Catskills, naturally. It was called the lockup of choice for white-collar Jewish criminals. Inmate Seth David said, for a Jewish person, there's no place like Otisville. It's 120 inmates. They're mostly doctors. Lawyers and accountants.

I'm not making this up. They have a commissary that sells skull caps for $6. A kosher selection. Motsie balls, gulfilte the fish, seltzer. They put out a spread like you would not believe. I love this. Lawrence Dressler, an inmate, says, hey, it's not Zabars.

And it's a little overpriced, but what do you want? It's prison. Do we even need to do a bit about this? Yes, wait. So we did a deep dive into this prison. And wow, there are some... Now, this is true. Here are some other things that go on in this prison.

For example, when an inmate drops the soap, the other inmates yell out, bend at the knees. The big prison gang is MS 401K. A riot can turn into wholesale slaughter or worse, retail slaughter. When you get the electric chair, the warden says,

would it kill you to sit down? If you cross the line, looking at time in the cooler. Cross the line again, you go back in the cooler, even closer to the air conditioning. This is a Jewish prison. If you misbehave badly at Otisville, you get sent up the river to unleavenworth.

The number one thing inmates complain about is the food. Second is the portions. And when they toss your salad in this prison, you get the dressing on the side. Okay, let's bring out the ambassador. He's the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, an author of, from Cold War to Hot Peace, an American ambassador in Putin's Russia.

Michael McFall is over here. Michael. Mr. Ambassador. Well, thanks for having me. Thank you for being had, because I was going to say, we look like genius is booking you on this night because all this Russia news and Roger Stone.

Although I just heard we don't have to think about Russia anymore. We're done. Exactly. It's over. The threat's done. Right. First, racism, and now Russia. It's all coming up.

So, I saw the, documentary that you are in, I think we had the director on the show. Right, active measures. Terrific. Really lays it out. And you say in that something like, all the interesting things I know, I can't tell you. And I can't tell you either. Really?

So, you know, even on HBO? No, but ask me and I'll try. Well, I mean, what do you know about Roger Stone that is so interesting that we can't know? Oh, I was referring to something else in there, which is about Putin and his methods. So the two things I know about Putin. I don't know exactly what Mr. Trump did

when he came to Russia in 2013, although I was the ambassador at the time. You were aware of the trip? I was aware of the trip. And usually we do a briefing now to think about it for security reasons with CEOs. We didn't do one for half. The pageant was there?

Yes. We made a decision that we weren't going to host a reception for the pageants. That didn't seem appropriate, at least for what we used to do at my house. But we usually tell people about some things you should think about. You should all think about it. You ever travel to Russia. One thing you should think about is that in Russia,

they have tremendous capabilities to monitor and tape everything. Oh, sure. And the Ritz Carlton, where Mr. Trump stayed, that's a very special hotel. Every world is wired, right? I mean, they're looking at everything. Correct. That's why what she said about it.

Like the Soviet Union has fallen. Maybe it has, but he hasn't. He was KGB. He wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. He does. Okay. And he wants to destroy us. Don't forget that.

That's part and parcel of the same story. So... And it's a real threat. Let's be clear. Like, the Soviet Union collapsed. I thought it was a great day. It was a great day in my life. But 30 years later, rushes back, and they see us as a number one enemy.

And also, we never really realized, or I didn't, certainly, that the animosity between the two countries went way. beyond just communism versus capitalism. It was deeper than that. Communism did go away of sorts, although it's a quasi-communist country still, but not the dictatorship and not the animosity toward the West. Right.

And our way of life and our way of doing things and just democracy in general. Right. I mean, Putin believes that we destroyed the Soviet Union. Putin believes that we made Russia poor. And Putin believes, and I know, because I was the poster child for this, that we interfered in his elections

back in 2011 and 2011 in 2012 to try to undermine him, and that's why he sought revenge in 2016. And he wants you, Putin. He does. Unfortunately, he does. He literally asked Trump if they would hand me over. Hand you over. The president said, that was a great idea, by the way.

Everything Putin says, he says, it's a great idea. When he was in Helsinki. And they asked him, do you think the Russians meddled? And, of course, he did it. Well, Mr. Putin says very strongly. Yeah. And, of course, when somebody says something very strongly, that's when you know it's true.

But at one point, Putin says, I've got a great idea. Why don't I, the criminal, work with your law enforcement people to solve who did this meddling? And Trump goes, that's a fantastic idea. I think that's, I'm a great dealmaker, and you can't ask for a better deal than that.

Well, thank God we didn't follow through on that deal. But, I mean, it gets to the point that, my point, the point of this whole thing. Because you guys were just talking about it earlier, right? This notion that Russia is some kind of, benign power. Right. And, you know, we don't really have to think about them.

Who cares about what happens in Venezuela? Even to those that are big sovereignty people, right? We've got to build this wall for sovereignty. I hear that a lot, right? Well, why shouldn't we have sovereignty over our elections? Why don't those people care when they talk about sovereignty? Yeah. Hold on.

We didn't have that capability in 2016. And I want to fight for that sovereignty so that Americans alone choose the next president of the United States. And what about 2020? What are you... Why wouldn't this crow come back to kill another chick if it worked the first time? Well, Putin doesn't always repeat the same play, so that, you know, he may change things. But we, as a country, have done virtually nothing to protect ourselves from what happened in 2016. So basic cybersecurity for campaigns, it's not a lot.

Basic rules about what kind of media that the Russian government can put on our... on our social platforms. We don't have any regulation on that. And there's one reason for it is because President Trump refuses to recognize this as a threat and so he blocks all those initiatives. And it's the money at the bottom of it, right?

I mean, his own kids and we got most of our money from Russia. He's at a certain point. It's not that complicated. He's a deadbeat. Nobody else would lend him money except the crooked Russians. Yes.

Right? So he's into them. Cut to the hookers peeing on each other. I don't. I don't think this is that complicated. Well, it's... So, follow the money again. So what I know about, I know Putin better than Trump, right? I've known him for a long time.

It's not exactly like we're Facebook friends or anything. No. Although, given what happens on Facebook these days, maybe we are. But two things. He uses money and compromise, right? That's a Russian word we all learned to create leverage inside Russia and other places. And those two are the instruments. Partly with those cameras of the rich call.

Correct. Right. And what do you think is on those cameras? I don't know. But everything that happens in the Ritz Carlton does not stay in the Ritz Carlton. Okay. And this guy, this name I read this week, Carl Klein. Yeah.

You know, did you hear about this? This is like one of those many stories. Like if it was any other president, it would be a year-long story. It gets buried. Carl Klein, some stooge that Trump installed in the White House to cut through what is normally the process. where someone has to get security clearance. And, of course, nobody in that administration could do it,

because they're all in bed with the Russians, or some sort of foreign adversary. So, like, I think 30 people? Was that the number of 30 people? Shocking number of years. Who the normal channels said, no, no, this guy does not get security clearance, and he appoints this guy.

Again, I never knew this was even possible. That you could appoint some guy just to say, fuck that. Jared Kushner gets clearance. This was whispered about two years ago. I mean, people in the White House wondered, how can somebody with those kind of financial entanglements get any kind of security clearance,

and then magically he did. And then magically other people did too. And given the nature of the people who, you know, were a part of this process, I mean, he had Steve Bannon on the National Security Council, right? So this isn't exactly the sharpest minds and the military and the U.S. intelligence, you know, having their say in who is and isn't privy to this kind of thing.

But their whole campaign thing was about Hillary's emails. Is that it was not secure, that she was a risk. And he uses an unsecure phone and has all these fucking people in the White House who, who, the, when they send Jared Kushner's form over to the CIA

to get the super high clearance, the CIA said, how did he get this far? So this is white privilege at its height, right? This idea that these completely unqualified criminal,

Jared Kushner and the New York Times found didn't pay any income tax. Right. And yet he is public servant number three, who is, because he's Jewish, he's in the middle of, he's the one who's going to be. I got the prison for him. He's taking care of the Middle East crisis for us. Like, he's WhatsApping with the prime, with the, I know, too. It's just unbelievable.

And, you know, in my community, we look at this and we're like, that's some white people shit. It is... It's not all white people. Let me come on. Don't all lump us together. But yeah, and speaking of that, you know,

these white people are meeting in Davos. Maybe it's over, but it was this week. That's where all the billionaires get together. And we learned some amazing things about wealth. 2,200 billionaires in the world, and their wealth increased by 900 billion in 2018. The poorest half of... of the world's population, so an 11% decrease,

the 26 richest billionaires are worth as much as 3.8 billion people. 26 people. I'm putting all my 401k into guillotine futures. Because it's coming. Well, I don't know about that. But it's interesting because when AOC said that thing about we should tax at 70%, the first reaction,

even among some Democrats, was, oh, that's crazy. and then we found out, no, the majority of Americans agree with that. Now Elizabeth Warren is calling for a wealth tax, not just what you earn in a year, but your nest egg we're going after if it's that much. And what do you think? Because that's unearned money for the most part. That is people who are sitting on trust funds,

people who, you know, were able to use hedge fund loot poles. This has been a problem for, as long as I've been alive, the idea that someone who's just, their entire job is to open their envelopes and see, how their stocks have done, is paid, is taxed less than someone who's, you know, walking around them, cleaning up after them. And that is a problem.

We've got to look at wealth because, listen, there's an idea in this country that we're losing, that every human being has some spark of ingenuity and opportunity. And when there's this much of a wealth divide and young people are going into debt and not being able to buy homes, we're losing out on all of that as a country.

And so it is time to redistribute. But what's interesting, it's overshadowed. It's overshadowed, by stone, by the shutdown, by whatever the hell Trump has done on any given day. But this is affecting our politics, and it has been. I mean, the fallout from the financial crisis ultimately led to Donald Trump into Bernie Sanders. America made a bet that Trump would be the guy who would rectify this inequality.

It isn't. But you can see that energy now shifting into the Democratic Party. That's why I don't think we'll see guillotine. Because Americans never blame rich people. That's the tragedy of the Trump voter. They see themselves being squeezed, and they, They can't identify who's doing the squeezing. They think it's immigrants and single moms who are getting, you know, the takers.

Remember the takers? Because of the demagoguery. And the democracy. And the right. And Trump voters are the minority. It's just that we have minority rule in this country because of voter suppression, because of gerrymandering, because of the Senate. And that's part of what we have to address.

We have to address the inequities that are hardwired into our system that have made economic inequality so much worse. Okay. And you do that by winning elections. You were saying we need to win elections, and you want, in the future, Americans, to pick their president. The Republican Party does not want Americans to make their president. And that's why we just kick their ass in November.

We need to... So remember that. And the way, all the things we're talking about, let's just, two things I want to say. One, all the things we're talking about will not happen unless there's a new president. Number two, the biggest promise, you were talking, Ann Coulter is all worried that he didn't deliver on that big promise to the wall. The real big promise he never delivered on it.

are all those workers that she was talking about, all those people, you know, that's my family. I'm from Montana. I know those people that voted for me. He hasn't done anything for those people. And that's what people I think we need to talk about moving into the next election cycle. It's not one thing.

All this other stuff is distraction so that we can talk about it, Walt. But when we talk about the concrete grievances that were legitimate, he hasn't done one thing for those people. That's what amazes me. And the poll numbers are showing that there is,

he's probably at his level. lowest now. It's like 34%. But those people, I promise you, are not going anywhere. That is Mrs. Gerbils in the bunker with the cyanide. Giving the cyanide to the children because she does not want to live in a world

without national socialism. Those people are not moving. Okay. I got your you work at Bloomberg. I have one more question to ask you because this pissed me off a lot. I thought I liked Michael Bloomberg. He's dead to me now. He says he's talking about marijuana. He says

72,000 Americans are overdosed on drugs in 2017. Yeah, none from pot. And today, he says, we are trying to legalize another addictive narcotic. Oh, fuck. Really? An addictive narcotic,

which is perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done. No, this statement is the stupidest thing anybody has ever done. I thought Giuliani was a dumb ex-New York mayor. I want you to quit right here on this state. So you're going to say,

Before I answer, you're going to give me a job after that. Explain why this is a bad position to hold. If the Democrats would make this an issue, they could win elections just on legalizing pot. The way, I swear, we did a thing on this one of, just the way guns are to the right wing, they love them, it's in your home, you touch it. It's personal. It's not just an abstract issue. Come out, full square for legalizing pot. We legalized pot at the ballot box in Washington State.

In 2012, the first stores opened a year and a half later. Drug use, pot use by young people, by high school students, has not increased. We have hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues to invest in Washington State. All of the doom and gloom predictions, including, oh, if you let them make candies and pot, candies and lozenges, kids will get them and we'll have zombie five-year-olds running around stoned out of the brains. Has not happened. And so I don't know what Bloomberg is talking about. And, you know, they always want to leap from.

If you legalize pot, then you're going to legalize heroin. They legalized all drugs in Portugal and made it a public health issue and it's better. What we do, locking people up and making drugs illegal and trying to stand between people and a product they want, even if it's bad for them, does not work.

But here's the political problem. Here's the political problem with an anti-pot position going into 2020. Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell just came out and led the effort to legalize hemp in the farm bill. John Boehner's working for a pot company. Right.

If you're to the right of a right of a... Republicans on marijuana issue. That's a tough argument. Tell your boss to see me. Can I say one thing? Remember you did it on the show that night. Remember you were on that show where we choked up. Thanks for bringing that one.

Thank you, panel. It's time for New Rules, everybody. We'll cut that out. All right. New Rule. New Rule. Someone has to tell right-wing media that we got the message about how socialism is bad and the proof is Venezuela. Socialism equals

Venezuela. Got it. There's socialism in Venezuela. Venezuela is socialist, and it's bad in Venezuela. Socialist Venezuela, where there are socialists in Venezuela. I believe you, okay? Steve Ducey hates socialism. Now prove he can find Venezuela on a map. New rule, there are two sides to every divorce.

An Irish woman who last year announced her marriage to a ghost. Now says it's over. she says he was emotionally distant. And if you ask him, there were days she acted like he was completely invisible. Regardless of who's at fault, the bigger question is who gets custody of their two beautiful children? New Rule, stop giving awards to actors for looking like crap. Like Christian Bale and Vice and Nicole Kidman and Destroyer and Charlize Theron and Monster. I'm not amazed they could make Christian Bail look 70?

I'm impressed that Tom Cruise falls off buildings worship sate. and then looks 30. New Rule, if you're going to criticize the Fox News Graphic Department for mistakenly displaying an obituary for Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this week, you must also praise them when they get one just right.

New Rule, stop saying the FCC prohibits sexualized content during NFL broadcast. On Sunday, we watched an entire team get fucked. And finally, to every person on social media who's asked me since November, Bill, what do you have to say about Stan Lee?

And every paparazzi outside a restaurant who's still shouting at me, Bill, what about the Stan Lee thing? Okay, your day has come. Tonight's editorial is about Stan Lee, who, if you missed it, died in November. And a few days later, I posted a blog that was in no way an attack on Mr. Lee, but took the occasion of his death to express my dismay at people who think comic books are literature,

and superhero movies are great cinema, and who in general are stuck in an everlasting childhood. Bragging that you're all about the Marvel universe is like boasting that your mother still pins your mittens to your sleeves. You can, if you want, like the exact same things you liked when you were 10. But if you do, you need to grow up. That was the point of my blog. I'm not glad Stan Lee is dead.

I'm sad you're alive. And by the way, if someone says you're being childish and you react by throwing a tantrum, you're not Iron Man. You're irony, man. Well, let me tell you, people were pissed about this post. I wasn't even aware that I had ruffled so many capes until I saw that 40,000 Twitter followers

unfollowed me like that, to which I say good riddins follow Yogi Bear. Director Kevin Smith accused me of taking a shot when no shots are fucking necessary. Except again, my shot wasn't at Stan Lee. It was at, you know, grown men who still dressed like kids. One comment said that Stan Lee has inspired children to believe in something bigger than them. And then added, Congrats, you're a cunt on the same level that Anne Coulter is a cunt.

Boy, did you pick the wrong night to tune in. Other people tweeted things like, I learned about social justice and racial tolerance by reading comic books. Okay, but now you have pubic hair. Read James Baldwin, read Tony Morrison, read Michael Eric Dyson.

Even a book as dumb as the Bible gets this. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things, including my X-Men bed sheets. Can we stop pretending that the writing in comic books

is so good? Oh, please. Every superhero movie's the same thing. A person who doesn't have powers, gets them, has to figure out how they work, and then has to find a glowy thing. Justice League, glowy thing. Iron Man, glowy thing.

Spider-Man, glow-y thing. Captain America. glowy thing. Glowy thing, glowy thing, glowy thing. And again, there's nothing wrong with a man writing comic books. There is something wrong with adults thinking they're profound. The folks at Stan's company,

Team Stan, wrote an open letter to me and said, you have a right to your opinion that comics are childish and unsophisticated. Many said the same about Dickens, Steinbeck, Melville, and even Shakespeare. No, they didn't. No, no one ever said that. No one ever said King Lear or Moby Dick was childish and unsophisticated.

If you ever read a book without pictures, you'd know that. Team Shakespeare should write you an open letter. Yes, Howard the Duck, Hamlet, same diff. To thine own self be true, meet Hulk smash. Comics are for kids. That's why they sell them next to the Pokemon cards and not on the aisle with the condoms and the lube. I'm sorry, but if you're an adult,

playing with superhero dolls. I'm sorry. I mean collectible action figures. Why not go all the way and drive to work on a big wheel? Grownups these days, they cling so desperately to their childhood that when they do attempt to act their age, they have a special word for it now.

Adulting. Hey, world, look at me. I just made my own eye appointment. Hashtag, adulting. Eating vegetables. Adults. Today I wipe my own ass. I guess I'm turning into my dad.

Marriages have been destroyed because the husbands, adult men, can't stop playing video games. When your wife wants to have sex and you can't come to bed because you're about to level up in Fortnite, don't be surprised when your relationship does this. All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Plaza in El Paso, Texas, March 2nd, the Pavilion in Dallas, March 16, and the Pope Joy in Albuquerque March 17. I want to thank Dan Savage, Heather McGee, Joshua Green, Michael McPol, and Coulter. Join us now for overtime on you, too. Thank you, folks. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch them anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.